2013-02-24
Explanation
In this comic, a father wakes his two children in the middle of the night with alarming news: he "went insane in the night" and killed their imaginary friends. He then adds that if the children see those imaginary friends again, it is because they are ghosts haunting them, and cheerfully says "Goodnight!" A dark middle panel shows two pairs of glowing eyes in the blackness -- the terrified children lying awake. The final panel, labeled "Earlier...," reveals the father's motivation: his child had called him "a stupid," prompting him to mutter "I'll show you who's a stupid."
The humor works on several levels. First, there is the absurdist premise of a parent "killing" imaginary friends -- entities that by definition do not exist and cannot be killed. Second, the father has created an elegant psychological trap: if the children still see their imaginary friends (which they will, because imaginary friends are imaginary), they will now believe they are being haunted by ghosts, which is far more terrifying. The "Earlier..." flashback reveals the pettiest possible motivation for this elaborate act of psychological warfare -- a child's mild insult. The comic plays on the trope of parents engaging in wildly disproportionate revenge against their own children, and the dark comedy of an adult who is clearly less mature than the kids he is supposed to be raising.